How To Disable Windows 8 Lock Screen

The newly added windows 8 Lock Screen is basically designed for tablet PCs, allowing users to quickly view the applications notifications, battery status, date and time, WiFi status/dynamic network icon etc. While you can do a lot of things with this with the tools and options provided by microsoft I find that the UI leaves me a little dry. The standard UI will not let you remove it entirely (insert big frowny face here). You may know that Microsoft Management Console snap-in called Local Group Policy Editor allows system administrator(s) to tweak system core components and change default behaviour of native utilities. Using the LGPE, you can easily disable the Lock Screen for all PC users. By default, Windows 8 shows Lock Screen at start-up but when it’s disabled, it takes you directly to login screen to choose the user account to log in to Windows.

log in to Windows as administrator, and on Start Screen, type gpedit.msc. Hit Enter to open Local Group Policy Editor.

Expand Administrative Templates settings from Computer Configuration, and then navigate to Control Panel –> Personalization. In main window, you will find Do not display the lock screen policy.

Now double-click this policy and tick Enabled checkbox. (Please note this will permanently disable the Lock Screen).

If you want to do undo this simply follow this tutorial in reverse (sorta) and as always use at your own risk.